Fortune of reversal

Question the universe about something, and miraculously I run into it in an unexpected way. This usually makes me feel pretty dumb, but at least I can be consoled by the fact that it is in the world. As a continuation of the previous post on the the rise in visibility of artwork from Africa, I saw two excellent shows recently of artists working in Ehtiopia and South Africa.

As I mentioned before, the work of William Kentridge at the SFMoma was fantastic. I allocated about two hours to spend with it, but ended up there for four. Kentridge's short films, video installations and animatronic "plays" display an expert use of screening in an art space. The relationship that ties different perspectives of different individuals living during and after apartheid gives the viewer a holistic look at the effects of universal government policies on the individual and the deep roots that these policies take in the psychology of the people.

The Santa Monica Museum of Art has the work of the Ethiopian multi-media artist Elias Sime currently on view. Sime's work is a polished mix of non-art materials that evoke the everyday with compositions that are both graphic and resonant of western painting traditions. A tonal white canvas was actually, on closer inspection, an embroidered swirl of line work that could have been made by Edvard Munch if stitching had replaced paint as his medium of choice. Primitive-looking carved chairs have varied-sized legs jutting out of the front of the seat and legs, as if the sitter were birthing them out of the wood. A self-taught artist who resurrects fragments found in the landscape of contemporary Ethiopia (sometimes collected by neighborhood children), Sime expertly expresses the cultural mash-up that becomes all too common as traditions of countries like Ethiopia are slowly subsumed into the hegemony of global popular culture.

"William Kentridge: Five Themes," San Francisco Moma, Mar 14-May 31, 2009.
"Elias Sime: Eye of the Needle, Eye of the Heart," Santa Monica Museum of Art, Jan 24-Apr 18, 2009.

crush all that is subtle

I've been revisiting some of my old essay reading, as I never seem to finish books like these. I come across some point, get very excited thinking about it, and then abandon the book like a tenth cup of coffee that's giving me a stomach ache. So, based on a conversation I had earlier in the week on the place of art in life and history, I re-read Morton Feldman's essay "The Anxiety of Art" (an review in Artforum of Give My Regards to Eighth Street, which it is anthologized in.) In this particular essay, Feldman laments how history contextualizes a work, removing from it what is intuitively enjoyable about it. "...the fact that a thing happened, that it exists in history, gives it an authority over us that has nothing to do with its actual value or meaning. We see it in life; why do we fail to see that in art too, the facts and successes of history are allowed to crush all that is subtle, all that is personal, in our work?" This sentiment extends, in Feldman's view, to the traditions of composition and the controls of reading or playing variations on the verbatim, for taking something at face value. Without the acceptance (forgiveness?) of chance, the work cannot achieve a transcendental quality: "For art to succeed, its creator must fail."
Richard Byrne, in the publication "American Prospect," recently wrote about a similar topic regarding an actual event. The author Milan Kundera was recently found, at the age of 20, to have gone to the Checkoslavic secret police and denounced a man for spying. Through the clear lens of hindsight, this is a deplorable act. Yet, through the uncertain haze of a present moment, to Kundera, Communism leveled the classes and seemed to provide equality for even its poorest relations. "Man proceeds in a fog. But when he looks back to judge the people of the past, he sees no fog on their path. From his present, which was their faraway future, their path looks perfectly clear to him, good visibility all the way. Looking back, he sees the path, he sees the people proceeding, he sees their mistakes but not the fog." Read the article here.